Yahoo buys IntoNow for $20-30M

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/25/yahoo-intonow/

by Timothee • 15 years ago

37 8 15 years ago

mikeryan• 15 years ago

This post is missing a possible reason for this acquisition.

Yahoo has their connected TV platform, right now they're just rolling out "broadcast interactivity" where you can have an app on your TV and iPad and mobile device sync'd to the TV broadcast. The way they are doing this is via audio fingerprinting, exactly what intonow has a bunch of IP in.

This isn't just Yahoo all the major CE players doing Connected TV apps and widgets are looking to get into these technologies. Think "popup" ads on your TV because they can recognize the ad that's currently playing on your TV.

Woot!

buymorechuck• 15 years ago

The folks at IntoNow are amazingly awesome product folks, congratulations!

aresant• 15 years ago

"12-week old company" ?

From their press release the core of their product is "SoundPrint, a patented technology platform"

Patented means wading through years of patent office shenanigans, and if it was patent-pending (2 weeks) they would have said as much.

Hard to find any history on the company beyond press release - anybody have further insight?

pramanat• 15 years ago

Intonow was spun out of Auditude which developed the audio fingerprinting technology, and Auditude has been around since 2006.

bfe• 15 years ago

It looks like at least the following patents assigned at least at some point to Autitude are floating around:

7,325,013 Database with efficient fuzzy matching

7,421,376 Comparison of data signals using characteristic electronic thumbprints

7,516,074 Extraction and matching of characteristic fingerprints from audio signals

These seem at first glance to date back at earliest to a provisional patent application filed April 24, 2001, so making some reasonable dot-connecting (e.g. if intonow has rights to these patents etc.), it looks like even this "amazing twelve weeks to liquidity event" was actually at least ten years in the making.

(Obligatory disclaimer, this post doesn't constitute legal advice, talk to your own attorney if you'd like legal advice on these matters.)

dstein• 15 years ago

I can't help but be kind of sad when Yahoo buys a company knowing the technology/product they have acquired will most likely die on the vine.

zandorg• 15 years ago

I used Shazam to find a tune I had a loop from for years, and didn't know what song it was from. Very useful!

[Edit]Shazam was mentioned in this article in relation to IntoNow.

cpeterso• 15 years ago

I'm not sure what the (profit-generating) use case is, but the IntoNow iPhone app passed my tests surprisingly well. Consider me impressed.

Yahoo buys IntoNow for $20-30M

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